I Wanted You To Pick Me Up When I Fall (But Instead You Let Me Drop)
by Juliczart
Summary: Meredith wasn't in a good mood. However, a patient might make this change -but for the worse. (One-Shot set after 14x07, but before 14x08) (I don't own any of the character who appear or are mentioned in this story, they belong to Shonda Rhimes, ABC and the Grey's Anatomy producers.)


Meredith Grey was not in a good mood.

She might have been. Once. A really, really, long time ago –or so it seemed at least.

She had definitely been in a good mood when she won a Harper Avery. The follow up, though… She didn't like it much. Who would have known that winning it would make her so famous? Sure, it was only in the medical community, since more than half the population in the world probably didn't even know the significance of the Avery surname, nor the Grey one. But, _damn_ , the medical community was surely big. She didn't understand how her mom had handled it; the interviews, the pictures, the people looking at her with a new-found respect -even if the only thing that changed about her was that she had a trophy sitting on her chimney-, the whispers around her, and even some uneasy looks from interns, who treated her as if she was surgical royalty (which she kind of was.) She would have handled all of it and more, had it not been interfering with her surgery time.

Surgery time was what kept her sane. Between her duties as a mother, a hospital owner, and her apparently never-ending personal tragedies, it felt as though surgery was the one thing that kept her going.

(Which wasn't true. Zola kept her going. Bailey kept her going. Ellis kept her going. Alex, Maggie, the other Bailey, Richard, Amelia, Arizona, April, Jackson, Owen and everyone else did. But she had learnt long ago not to rely too much on them, even if she found herself doing so. People weren't reliable. Nobody was. Not even the kindest, most warm-hearted, like Izzie had once been. They all either left or died, and she was fed up of it. She had relied on her mother, on Susan, on George, on Mark, on Callie, on Cristina, who had been her closest friend, on _Lexie_ , her amazing kid sister, _on Derek_ , her loving husband, and in so, _so much more_ people, she had lost count at some sad point. So, she wasn't about to make the same naïve mistake. Not when someone could suddenly get ran over by a bus, or get shot in the head, or get crushed by a plane, or ran over by a semi. Not when there was so much at stake.

But surgery was a constant. It couldn't leave, it couldn't die and couldn't leave her behind with the remains of a broken heart to be healed on its own, not like everyone else had the power to. She could trust surgery, she could perform surgery and learn from it, and feel the adrenaline take over her, and get better, and feel her problems evaporate, and just _be_. No conflicts, no drama, no death and tragedy, just surgery.)

Given this, she was understandably in a bad mood when all she had got around to do in the day was a simple appy. Just a one hour long, easy surgery which had in no way provided whatever magic surgery had that helped her get through the day. She hoped her children's magic would help before it was too late.

However, she was afraid it might already be too late since her shift still had three more hours to go, and she felt like couldn't really last that long. Come to think of it, she owned the hospital, could she be suspended for leaving early? Well, Bailey _did_ suspend her (which was extremely rude and uncalled for, by the way.)

All her thoughts on leaving work, however, were interrupted as none other than Jo Wilson paged her 911 to the ER.

Which was a huge inconvenience, see, as she wanted to do nothing more to get her daily coffee –for the sixth time that day.

She went down to the pit as fast as her tired legs allowed her to do so, and immediately saw the young resident standing immediately outside of a trauma room. It apparently was a slow day, since the usually packed ER was left with just a few patients, most of them in need of stitches or a cast. It was probably because it was Sunday and everyone stayed home –except for them, of course, since there's no rest for the wicked.

"Wilson," Meredith called as she trotted up to the resident, "What do we got?"

Wilson shifted uncomfortably in her position and threw a nervous glance backwards, before turning back to the attending.

"Um… Actually…" she gulped and threw another glance to the trauma room door. "He- This guy's drunk and… and he started calling- _screaming_ for you, and I think his hand was bleeding, but he kept resisting and he just… yelled, and was causing such a mayhem so I…" Wilson winced "I just shoved him in here, because he was causing a scene, but he still refuses to be attended and keeps calling for you."

The resident looked up to her expectantly, and in turn Meredith frowned and stared at the door before them. She nodded slowly once, and then she did it surely.

"Okay," she muttered. "Okay. Good call, Wilson. Let's just get this over with."

Meredith opened the door, without so much as a second thought. It happened all the time, patients wanting to see a doctor specifically. More so, when they were out of it, and a familiar face might bring comfort. By the sounds of it, this man was _clearly_ out of it. But it was normal. Nothing to worry about.

Once she was in the room, Wilson closely behind, the resident shut the door.

"Alright sir, we'll just-" it was then when Meredith finally looked up.

She almost dropped the tablet she had in hand, and managed not to gape at the man in front of her. Shock had taken over her, and she was standing still, unmoving in front of another misfortune. Was a simple day too much to ask for? Was that too much, really?

(She knew it was. When you worked at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, it was. And really, she shouldn't have been shocked. After everything that's happened in the course of the year, from Megan suddenly appearing –another reminder of Meredith's personal tragedies, by the way, because people can apparently get their soulmates and sisters back but she can't- to her winning the most important award a surgeon can win, nothing should have to be a shock. But there was Meredith again, suddenly coming face to face with one of her biggest and most unresolved issues, to remind herself what a failure her and her life actually were, despite having accomplished more than she had ever imagined. There were some points, in which she thought she could have it all put together once again, moments like the one she had been living just a few seconds ago, until she saw this man, who came in like a wrecking ball to absolutely destroy everything she had been working on for the last few weeks. And really, it shouldn't affect her anymore, issues such as these, after everything she went through. Not when the plane crash, her dead husband, her almost dying giving birth, and her hospital in flames had happened afterwards. But it did affect her, and it affected her a lot. Because this man had left a huge hole in her heart, so big it could not ever be repaired. He left a father-sized hole.)

"Thatcher." She greeted him coldly, and glared intently.

Thatcher was, by all definitions of the word, a mess. His beady, unnerving eyes were bloodshot and weirdly shiny, he had put on weight and his beard was prickly and uncared for, while his hair was nearly gone, except for a few white patches here and there. Meredith could smell the alcohol scent emanating from her father- no, Thatcher- from where she was standing, a few meters away. His hand was bleeding profusely, just as Dr. Wilson has said, and she was suddenly hit by a huge sense of déjà vu.

"M-redth," Thatcher slurred, offering a blank look.

"I see you are drunk again."

There was a cutting edge to Meredith's voice, and it was obvious it was not just a mere observation, instead, the words were intended to sting.

"Glad to see you wasting that liver."

Wilson let loose a choked sound behind her, astonished at Meredith's bedside manners.

"St-op bein'… _meeannn,_ " Thatcher sniffed.

"I have every right to be mean, and you know it."

Wilson was making nervous faces now, and looking attentively between her superior and the man, Thatcher.

"Where's that girlfriend of yours, anyways?" asked Meredith dryly. "Giselle, was it? Or Annabelle, Danielle?"

"I don't- _hic_ \- have a… girrrlfriend." Thatcher claimed, narrowing his eyes. He hiccupped again. "I just want… I just want my wife and, and daughter… my little, little L-Le-"

"They're dead, Thatcher." Meredith cut the man abruptly.

Dr. Wilson gasped behind her, and it was apparently the final straw for her.

"Dr. Grey, what are you- "

"Not now, Wilson!" Meredith exclaimed, turning back to the resident to scowl.

To her credit, Wilson remained unflinching under her cold stare.

"But, Dr. Grey! The man's drunk, he doesn't kno- "

"What you mean they, they are _dead_?" Thatcher shook his head incredulously, unbeknownst to the fact that he had interrupted someone. "They not _dead_."

"They are Thatcher, because your wife Susan died under my care, and when you found out, you slapped me across the face." Wilson sucked in a breath. "And you proved more than once that you're a terrible, _terrible_ person, not worthy of any of the love you received from Susan or Lexie. And it was actually Lexie, the one who makes you a 'lifetime's worth of proud'," Meredith _sneered_ when she said that "that convinced me to give you a second chance. And I wouldn't have done it, had it not been because of her, because she _did_ make me proud and I tried so, _very_ hard not to let her down, like _you constantly did!"_

Meredith had been raising her voice as her speech gradually became more intense, and nearing the end, she was practically screaming.

"Dr. Grey, you need to calm down please." Wilson pleaded, not wanting to attract uninvited attention.

But Meredith was on a roll, and she had to let everything out before she exploded.

"And I gave you more than a second chance! I gave you half my liver! I gave you half my liver and here you are, screwing it up like you do with everything! Like you did with my _life_."

Wilson stopped trying to get her to compose herself at the unexpected turn the one-sided screaming match had taken.

"You had to go and screw _this_ up, didn't you? What would Lexie think? What would my little sister think if she saw you, at her workplace, breaking the promise you made her? You promised her you wouldn't ever fall back into your old habits! And even though she's dead, the promise still counts! You don't get a free exit ticket because of that!"

By the time Meredith ended, her eyes were filled with unshed tears, she wasn't sure if they were from grieving or from rage.

Wilson was staring wide-eyes, probably having connected the dots and figuring out that, this man was, in fact, Meredith Grey's father.

"I will do some stitches to your hand, and I'll never have to see you or hear from you, ever again," Meredith said, so calmly it was unnerving. "Do you understand?"

Thatcher looked up vacantly into her eyes before muttering three simple words.

"Where am I?"

Meredith yelled in frustration and threw her head back, abstaining herself from banging it repeatedly on the wall.

"Dr. Wilson," she growled instead. "Page Avery or whoever is available to come in here and do the stitches, sedate him if necessary, I don't care. Just do it."

Jo nodded and scrambled to get her pager and do as she was said as fast as possible, while Meredith started exiting the room.

Before leaving, however, she stood at the doorway and, without looking back she pronounced some final words.

"Goodbye Thatcher, hope you get better soon."

She went into the hallway, Wilson following behind.

"I see your father is a real work up," she mumbled, before turning left and going to another hallway.

"He is." Meredith whispered to herself. "He really is."

And with that, Dr. Meredith Grey may have solved one of the most recurrent issues in her tragic, personal life.


End file.
